Category Archives: planning

Andrew has been working from home since 1997. I asked him how he achieves balance between his home and work life.When he set up his home office as a self-employed tax consultant he read a lot of books (LEARNING) on the home office and how should set it up.
This is what he learnt:

“I decided that I needed a number of none negotiable values to incorporate into my home office to make work successfully for me and my family:

1. SEPARATE HOME OFFICE

I needed to be able to be separate from my living space. I put up a partition in the hallway and it gave me three spaces… a reception area, an area for my computer server, stationery, printers, scanner etc and an office with lots of spare desks, room to talk to clients, work, study and concentrate. Art adorns the walls and above my main computer monitor I have the following words (MINDSET):

I will not be angry.

I will not worry.

I will be grateful and thankful.

I will do my work honestly.

I will be kind to every living thing.

2. DRESS FOR WORK

I decided I would get up, shave, shower and dress appropriately every day I was at work. My attitude is dress as I would if I had to go to work off site. The reason behind a certain dress code for office is that what you wear has an impact on how you feel. And thus one should dress up to feel charged up and stay focused.

3. SET UP MY WORKSPACE PROPERLY

I decided that I would work with at least two monitors of at least 26 inch each, I kick arse graphics card, good speakers, as much RAM as I could get with my desktop and the best connection available (currently 200/200 MPS)! In addition that the server would be updated 5 yearly! When there are no clients the music makes my day just a little brighter! AND webinars are a breeze!

4. SET OFFICE HOURS

Chores are done when I am out of office. I remember I am working from home, not for home!

5. STAY HEALTHY

I look after my health. I take regular breaks- micro pauses. I built my ergonomic setup myself as I suffered from RSI in the previous job! I also take lots of supplements for good health.

6. WORK ON MY MINDSET

I make sure that I meditate in the morning and at night, take a walk daily, do daily yoga and have a massage at least once every three weeks!”

Feedback is appreciated!

You can follow us on facebook or our website!

Kerri Bainbridge

Learning, Mindset, Collaboration

One Half of the Anywhere Business Network

Someone asked me why I was in business so I had a long and hard think about it!

I first covered off the things that were required:

• Warmth
• Shelter
• Food
• Health

I know what my business does:

Why We Do What We Do:

We wake up in the morning wanting to inspire people and their communities to make a difference.

Small business is the core of communities.

We are passionate that collaboration, mindset, and learning are key to small business success.

I dived deep and looked at the real why! After all the digital intrapreneur program is something we do

So here is my why!

Andrew Elphick

Half of Anywhere Business Network

www.anywherebusinessnetwork.co.nz 

If you are ever in a situation in your business where your revenue or profits falling year-on-year it’s really important to find out why that’s happening. You know, a common response to the question “why is your revenue fallen?” is “well it’s the economy you know it’s really tough out there” and my response to that would be “well are there any businesses out there in your industry who are actually doing quite well now?”. And what I’m looking for is what can we learn from that other people are doing and those other people of course could be your competitors.

I think it’s really important to do a periodical review of your competitors.  Find out what it is that they’re doing relative to what you’re doing and maybe pick up some tips and tricks as to what you could do differently or better, to grab some market share back.

So here are five ideas that you could implement to do exactly that.

First, of all ask your team because they’re closest to the coalface they’re dealing with customers customers who probably had sought to competitive as well as your business and they’ll be able to give you some feedback as to what they’re hearing in the marketplace

Secondly, grab some promotional material some brochures any other material he can get hold of from your competitors and see what they’re doing or go to their website see what they’re promoting right now make sure that you’re on the same page as them in what they’re doing.

Thirdly, ask customers and suppliers find out where you’re better but also ask them to be honest and tell them where you’re weaker than your competitors is.

Number four, analyze your strengths and weaknesses maybe you just do a brainstorm with your whole team and list out all of the strengths you have in your business and then all of the weaknesses you have as well and then pull together an action plan of the top three items that you’re going to change
and then..

Number five, of course is most important get an action plan together and then implement that plan your account doesn’t help you with this they can do some mystery shopping for you they can do some analysis work they can facilitate workshops they can pull some reports together to help you understand how your competitors are doing relative to your business with the goal of course of improving your revenue and your profitability.

^{Video: Courtesy of Panalitix Proprietory Ltd via the Taxman Ltd. Panalitix produce these wonderful short videos. To subscribe to the Elevate EMagazine produced by Panalitix email us at info@anywherebusinessnetwork.co.nz and put Subscribe to Elevate newsletter.Need more help?}

What next?

If you are keen to work with other entrepeneurs, get into a different mindset, and learn the skills to make your buisness more profitable. Check out www.anywherebusinessnetwork.com

Kerri Bainbridge and Andrew Elphick

Anywhere Team NZ

Collaborate, Mindset, Learning

Now that the New Year is here, it is the perfect time to set goals for your business and your personal life.
If you’ve had difficulty achieving your goals in the past, maybe it was because you tried to accomplish too much at once and were overwhelmed.
This year, use these goal-setting tips, and map out a successful step-by-step plan you can easily follow:
1. Focus on one or two main goals – Choose just one or two larger goals to pursue this year. This can be difficult, but narrowing your focus is essential and will allow you to better concentrate on whichever goal(s) you choose.
2. Create subgoals – After you’ve settled on your main goal(s) for the year, it’s time to break it down into monthly subgoals to make the larger objective more manageable. Think of the most important tasks you need to accomplish to reach your main goal, and assign those tasks to each month of the year. Segmenting the process this way will help you visualise what you need to do every month to stay on track.
3. Create microgoals – Make your monthly goals more manageable by breaking them into 4 (four) microgoals, which can be thought of as weekly goals. This will help you avoid the temptation to procrastinate and leave all your subgoal duties for the end of each month. You can also segment your weekly microgoals into daily tasks so that you’ll know each day what you need to do to stay on schedule.
Remember, the key to goal setting is staying organised. Take the time to understand what you need to do every month, week and day this year in order to reach your larger goals, and then get started. Good luck!

Additional Resources: You will find both these articles really worthwhile.
How to Set Goals That Are Motivating instead of frustrating: http://on.inc.com/2ioULIL
How to Actually Reach the Goals You Set: http://bit.ly/2iC8knq